Gone Girl

hear. You are brilliant . You are witty . And how fun for her to know that she could fuck with my head like that still . Long-distance, even. I mean, I was … Christ, I was practically falling in love with her again.’
    My throat hitched for a moment. The goofy story about her friend Insley’s half-dressed, disgusting baby. Amy knew that was what I had loved most about us back when I loved us: not the big moments, not the Romantic with capital-R moments, but our secret inside jokes. And now she was using them all against me.
    ‘And guess what?’ I said. ‘They just found Amy’s purse in Hannibal. I’m sure as hell someone can place me there. Hell, I paid for my tour ticket with my credit card. So again, here is this piece of evidence, and Amy making sure I can be linked to it.’
    ‘What if no one found the purse?’ Tanner asked.
    ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Go said. ‘She’s keeping Nick running in circles, she’s amusing herself. I’m sure she was happy just knowing what a guilt trip it must be for Nick to be reading all these sweet notes when he knows he’s a cheat and she’s gone missing.’
    I tried not to wince at her disgusted tone: cheat .
    ‘What if Gilpin were still with Nick when he went to Hannibal?’ Tanner persisted. ‘What if Gilpin were with Nick the whole time, so he knew that Nick didn’t plant the purse then?’
    ‘Amy knows me well enough to know I’d ditch Gilpin. She knows I wouldn’t want a stranger watching me read this stuff, gauging my reactions.’
    ‘Really? How do you know that?’
    ‘I just do.’ I shrugged. I knew, I just knew.
    ‘Clue Three,’ I said, and pushed it into Tanner’s hand.
    Maybe you feel guilty for bringing me here
    I must admit it felt a bit queer
    But it’s not like we had the choice of many a place
    We made the decision: We made this our space .
    Let’s take our love to this little brown house
    Gimme some goodwill, you hot lovin’ spouse .
    ‘See, I misread this, thinking that bringing me here meant Carthage, but again, she’s referring to my father’s house, and—’
    ‘It’s yet another place where you fucked this Andie girl,’ Tannersaid. He turned to my sister. ‘Pardon the vulgarity.’
    Go gave a no-problem flick of her hand.
    Tanner continued: ‘So, Nick. There are incriminating women’s panties in your office, where you fucked Andie, and there is Amy’s incriminating purse in Hannibal, where you fucked Andie, and there is an incriminating treasure trove of secret credit-card purchases in the woodshed, where you fucked Andie.’
    ‘Uh, yeah. Yes, that’s right.’
    ‘So what’s at your dad’s house?’

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE
    SEVEN DAYS GONE
    I ’m pregnant! Thank you, Noelle Hawthorne, the world knows it now, you little idiot. In the day since she pulled her stunt at my vigil (I do wish she hadn’t upstaged my vigil, though – ugly girls can be such thunder stealers), the hatred against Nick has ballooned. I wonder if he can breathe with all that fury building around him.
    I knew the key to big-time coverage, round-the-clock, frantic, bloodlust never-ending Ellen Abbott coverage, would be the pregnancy. Amazing Amy is tempting as is. Amazing Amy knocked up is irresistible. Americans like what is easy, and it’s easy to like pregnant women – they’re like ducklings or bunnies or dogs. Still, it baffles me that these self-righteous, self-enthralled waddlers get such special treatment. As if it’s so hard to spread your legs and let a man ejaculate between them.
    You know what is hard? Faking a pregnancy.
    Pay attention, because this is impressive. It started with my vacant-brained friend Noelle. The Midwest is full of these types of people: the nice-enoughs. Nice enough but with a soul made of plastic – easy to mold, easy to wipe down. The woman’s entire music collection is formed from Pottery Barn compilations. Her bookshelves are stocked with coffee-table crap: The Irish in America. Mizzou Football: A History in Pictures. We Remember 9/11. Something Dumb with Kittens . I knew I needed a pliant friend for my plan, someone I could load up with awful stories about Nick, someone who would become overly attached to me, someone who’d be easy to manipulate, who wouldn’t think too hard about anything I said because she felt privileged to hear it. Noelle was the obvious choice, and when she told me she was pregnant again – triplets weren’t enough, apparently – I realized I could be pregnant too.
    A search